Moderna vaccine update

I enrolled in the COVE study (phase III Moderna vaccine trial) last fall, one of over 30,000. It was a blinded study, but after the second shot, I knew I was in the vaccine arm. A month after the second shot, I had my spike antibody titer measured, and it was over eight times the threshold for a positive result.

Here's a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine summarizing the results of the COVE trial. The number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in the vaccine cohort was over an order of magnitude smaller than in the placebo arm, almost certainly because many vaccinated people had inapparent infections and thus went untested.

"Vaccine efficacy in preventing Covid-19 illness was 93.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 91.0 to 94.8), with 55 confirmed cases in the mRNA-1273 group (9.6 per 1000 person-years; 95% CI, 7.2 to 12.5) and 744 in the placebo group (136.6 per 1000 person-years; 95% CI, 127.0 to 146.8). The efficacy in preventing severe disease was 98.2% (95% CI, 92.8 to 99.6), with 2 cases in the mRNA-1273 group and 106 in the placebo group, and the efficacy in preventing asymptomatic infection starting 14 days after the second injection was 63.0% (95% CI, 56.6 to 68.5), with 214 cases in the mRNA-1273 group and 498 in the placebo group. Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnic and racial groups, age groups, and participants with coexisting conditions. No safety concerns were identified."

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2113017?query=WB&cid=NEJM%20Weekend%20Briefing%2C%20October%202%2C%202021%20DM341691_NEJM_Non_Subscriber&bid=641418354&fbclid=IwAR3-Wbzn2h3yQSGxFbStM1f1yBgv823m7nI0rryOSwSYmyW6f9h9IobfHTE